When terminal displays (other than simple command line text) have problems, setting TERM=anything is the wrong approach. Unfortunately, the standard HP-supplied /etc/profile and .profile make this situation worse by assuming that if TERM is already set, then don't do anything. But unless you are using telnet from one HP-UX box to another, the TERM value will likely be wrong.
Recognizing that there are a *lot* of telnet clients and terminal emulators out there, HP-UX supplies the best tool I have seen to identify your particular terminal: ttytype. To see it worki, type this command:
ttytype -s
and you'll see the code identify your terminal as well as setup the erase character and LINES/COLUMNS. To fix the profile problem, look at /etc/profile and .profile (I assume you are using a POSIX standard shell such as ksh or HP's POSIX shell and not a scummy csh or tcsh, etc). Find the section where $TERM is tested, something like this:
# Set up the terminal:
if [ "$TERM" = "" ]
then
eval ` tset -s -Q -m ':?hp' `
else
eval ` tset -s -Q `
fi
stty erase "^H" kill "^U" intr "^C" eof "^D"
stty hupcl ixon ixoff
tabs
You want to scrap all that code and replace it with something like this:
######################################
tty -s
if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
eval $(ttytype -s)
LINES=${LINES:-""}
[ "$LINES" = "" ] && eval $(resize)
stty kill "^U" intr "^C" eof "^D" -parity ixoff
stty susp \^Z dsusp \^Y
tabs
fi
######################################
This code will fix several things including the override with ttytype that won't set LINES and COLUMNS when connected to the managment port (console).
This assumes that you are using a PC running SecureCRT, QCterm, Reflection for HP, PuTTY, Attachmate, and on and on... HOWEVER, if you are using Xwindows, then HP-UX (specifically, Xterm, HPterm and DTterm) bypass normal profiles (a bad thing) so you'll also need to fix that. This is easy. Login to the HP-UX system and run this command to create .Xdefaults:
echo "*loginShell=true" >> .Xdefaults
Do this for every user's home directory (and of course make the changes above for the profiles). Now exit and login again. Check your settings with:
echo $TERM $LINES $COLUMNS
They should now match your local terminal. And now anyone can use any terminal emulator and be properly setup. The only exception is that the console (management port) should be accessed with a vt100 style terminal. As mentioned above, you can change this from vt100 to hp but so few people have HP terminal emulators that it is much safer to set the MP to vt100.
Bill Hassell, sysadmin
